Hastings, New Zealand
March 25, 2009

Cambridge Edition

A Cambridge dairy farmer has calculated that his herd was earning him an extra $110 a day when grazing high sugar grass this summer.

“With the payout pegged back we need to get any extra milk into the vat,” said farm manager Luke Edwards (right), keen to sow more high sugar grass this autumn.

He said the herd of 220 cows would repeatedly put an extra 270 litres of milk into the vat after a day’s grazing in their trial paddock of high sugar ryegrass.

“That’s an another 22kg milksolids which at $5 per kg is earning an extra $110 for the day,” said Luke.

He said their cows “decked the AberDart (high sugar grass)” at each grazing and by spring the April-sown paddock was being grazed every 16 days in a 20 day round for the rest of the farm.

Farm owner Willie Matthews has tried various new ryegrass varieties, including fast growing annual ryegrasses bred for early season growth, and is now planning to progressively regrass more of the farm with the perennial AberDart as maize and turnip areas are turned over.

“The cows mow it evenly, they leave no clumps and at the moment it looks like a green mat,” said Willie.

Te Awamutu dairy farmer David Bryant is also sowing more pasture into AberDart this Autumn after a trial area of six hectares, late-sown last May, had performed well.

“The cows leave no clumps in those paddocks and they looks good, stay green and had an impressive amount of clover coming through in the summer,” said David.

“The cows seem to be satisfied with their lot in the AberDart,” he said.

A mix of AberDart and clover seed is now being sown into 34ha of harvested maize blocks at the Bryant family’s Te Awamutu farm and into 20ha of peat as part of their dairy conversion at Templeview.
“We probably could have pushed the AberDart harder and grazed it more frequently in summer,” said David, who has noted the high sugar pasture’s finer and denser growth.

The increases in milk production from cows grazing AberDart is supported by trial results from AgResearch which has conducted high sugar ryegrass trials since 2004.

AgResearch has continued a high sugar grass project through the current season (2008/09) for DairyNZ, which sees the potential for high sugar grasses to increase metabolisable energy in pasture, improve the conversion efficiency of grass to animal product and, as a consequence, reduce nitrogenous waste from cows.

In a separate DairyNZ project AgResearch is seeking to increase productivity by developing perennial ryegrass varieties that will promote superior digestion rate and voluntary intake of grazed pasture by dairy cows.

Website: http://www.germinalseeds.co.nz/

Published: March 25, 2009